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Author: Donella H. Meadows
Publisher: Universe Pub
Published: 1972
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780876632222
DOWNLOAD EBOOKExamines the factors which limit human economic and population growth and outlines the steps necessary for achieving a balance between population and production. Bibliogs
Author: Stephen Macekura
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2015-07-15
Total Pages: 349
ISBN-13: 1107072611
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOf Limits and Growth offers new perspectives on environmentalism, post-1945 international history, and the origins of sustainability.
Author: Hiroshi Komiyama
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2014-02-18
Total Pages: 131
ISBN-13: 443154559X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAt a time when contemporary challenges seem to many to be insurmountable, this book offers an optimistic view of the future and provides a road map for societies to get there. Drawing upon extensive research and many years as a thought leader in environmental and sustainability issues in Japan and internationally, Hiroshi Komiyama analyzes the most pressing challenges to the attainment of sustainability of economically advanced nations and argues forcefully for Japan to lead them out of the present dilemma through active promotion of creative consumer and societal demand. He shows how an active industry–government–academic partnership can provide the environment needed to promote such new creative demand and illustrates its potential through presentation of a Platinum Society Network that was launched on a regional basis in Japan in 2010 to facilitate the solution of common issues through the exchange of information and ideas. What is perhaps most surprising about the text is its unwavering optimism supported by hard evidence, history, and insightful observation. Problems arising from new paradigms of the 21st century (what the author refers to as “exploding knowledge, limited Earth resources, and aging societies“) thwart sustainable development in advanced and developing countries alike. All countries will struggle with issues that evolve from these paradigms including diminishing resources, expanding budget deficits, and growing global environmental problems. This window on potential practical pathways and solutions should be of interest to all those engaged in seeking ways to meet these contemporary challenges.
Author: Donella Hager Meadows
Publisher:
Published: 1993
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780930031626
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: Peter N. Hess
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-05-26
Total Pages: 754
ISBN-13: 1317525043
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEconomic growth, reflected in increases in national output per capita, makes possible an improved material standard of living and the alleviation of poverty. Sustainable development, popularly and concisely defined as ‘meeting the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs,' directly addresses the utilization of natural resources, the state of the environment, and intergenerational equity. Now in its second edition, Economic Growth and Sustainable Development features expanded discussion of income distribution, social capital and the insights of behavioural economics for climate change mitigation. Boxed case studies have been added which explore the impact of economic growth on people and countries in both the developed and developing world. This text addresses the following fundamental questions: What causes economic growth? Why do some countries grow faster than others? What accounts for the extraordinary growth in the world’s population over the past two centuries? What are the current trends in population and will these trends continue? How do we measure sustainable development and is sustainable development compatible with economic growth? Why is climate change the greatest market failure of all time? What can be done to mitigate climate change and global warming? With a blend of formal models, empirical evidence, history and policy, this text provides a coherent and comprehensive treatment of economic growth and sustainable development. It is suitable for those who study development economics, sustainable development and ecological economics.
Author: Kaitlin Kish
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-11-03
Total Pages: 275
ISBN-13: 1000471470
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEmbracing the reality of biophysical limits to growth, this volume uses the technical tools from ecological economics to recast the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as Ecological Livelihood Goals – policy agendas and trajectories that seek to reconcile the social and spatial mobility and liberty of individuals, with both material security and ecological integrity. Since the 1970s, mainstream approaches to sustainable development have sought to reconcile ecological constraints with modernization through much vaunted and seldom demonstrated strategies of ‘decoupling’ and ‘dematerialization’. In this context, the UN SDGs have become the orchestrating drivers of sustainability governance. However, biophysical limits are not so easily sidestepped. Building on an ecological- economic critique of mainstream economics and a historical- sociological understanding of state formation, this book explores the implications of ecological limits for modern progressive politics. Each chapter outlines leverage points for municipal engagement in local and regional contexts. Systems theory and community development perspectives are used to explore under- appreciated avenues for the kind of social and cultural change that would be necessary for any accommodation between modernity and ecological limits. Drawing on ideas from H.T. Odum, Herman Daly, Zigmunt Bauman, and many others, this book provides guiding research for a convergence between North and South that is bottom-up, household-centred, and predicated on a re- emerging domain of Livelihood. In each chapter, the authors provide recommendations for reconfiguring the UN’s SDGs as Ecological Livelihood Goals – a framework for sustainable development in an era of limits. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of ecological economics, socio- ecological systems, political economy, international and community development, global governance, and sustainable development.
Author: Ugo Bardi
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2011-05-27
Total Pages: 128
ISBN-13: 1441994165
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“The Limits to Growth” (Meadows, 1972) generated unprecedented controversy with its predictions of the eventual collapse of the world's economies. First hailed as a great advance in science, “The Limits to Growth” was subsequently rejected and demonized. However, with many national economies now at risk and global peak oil apparently a reality, the methods, scenarios, and predictions of “The Limits to Growth” are in great need of reappraisal. In The Limits to Growth Revisited, Ugo Bardi examines both the science and the polemics surrounding this work, and in particular the reactions of economists that marginalized its methods and conclusions for more than 30 years. “The Limits to Growth” was a milestone in attempts to model the future of our society, and it is vital today for both scientists and policy makers to understand its scientific basis, current relevance, and the social and political mechanisms that led to its rejection. Bardi also addresses the all-important question of whether the methods and approaches of “The Limits to Growth” can contribute to an understanding of what happened to the global economy in the Great Recession and where we are headed from there.
Author: Victor I. Danilov-Danil'yan
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2009-03-27
Total Pages: 263
ISBN-13: 3540752501
DOWNLOAD EBOOK2007 marked the 20th anniversary of the G.H.Brundtland Commission report that broke new ground by addressing the issue of sustainable development as a means of avoiding an ecological catastrophe. This led to a multitude of political declarations, documents and scientific articles while Agenda 21 – adopted in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro – has been accepted by the governments of more than 100 countries. Sadly, however, this has not prevented certain recent dangerous trends, nor have the wider public, journalists, business circles or politicians grasped the urgency of the problem. It is therefore important to make humanity understand its real place in the natural environment and the gravity of the ecological threat before us. The exclusive role of natural ecosystems is a key factor in the maintenance of the biospheric equilibrium. The current global crisis is largely caused by their dramatic decline by 43% in the past hundred years. Ignoring the immutable laws and limitations which determine the existence of all living things in the biosphere could lead humanity to an ecological catastrophe. This book presents the ecological, demographic, economic and socio-psychological manifestations of the global crisis and outlines the immutable laws and limitations which determine the existence of all living things in the biosphere.
Author: Sven Erik Jørgensen
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-07-03
Total Pages: 236
ISBN-13: 1317552008
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDecades of research and discussion have shown that the human population growth and our increased consumption of natural resources cannot continue – there are limits to growth. This volume demonstrates how we might modify and revise our economic systems using nature as a model. The book describes how nature uses three growth forms: biomass, information, and networks, resulting in improved overall ecosystem functioning and co-development. As biomass growth is limited by available resources, nature uses the two other growth forms to achieve higher resource use efficiency. Through a universal application of the three ‘R’s: reduce, reuse, and recycle, nature thus shows us a way forward towards better solutions. However, our current approach, dominated by short-term economic thinking, inhibits full utilization of the three ‘R’s and other successful approaches from nature. Building on ecological principles, the authors present a global model and futures scenario analyses which show that implementation of the proposed changes will lead to a win-win situation. In other words, we can learn from nature how to develop a society that can flourish within the limits to growth with better conditions for prosperity and well-being.
Author: Lester Brown
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-06-25
Total Pages: 258
ISBN-13: 113654075X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this urgent time, World on the Edge calls out the pivotal environmental issues and how to solve them now. We are in a race between political and natural tipping points. Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to save the Greenland ice sheet and avoid catastrophic sea level rise? Can we raise water productivity fast enough to halt the depletion of aquifers and avoid water-driven food shortages? Can we cope with peak water and peak oil at the same time? These are some of the issues Lester R. Brown skilfully distils in World on the Edge. Bringing decades of research and analysis into play, he provides the responses needed to reclaim our future.
